Hallenbeck v. Granby Ditch and Reservoir Company

420 P.2d 419, 160 Colo. 555
CourtSupreme Court of Colorado
DecidedDecember 5, 1966
Docket20889
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 420 P.2d 419 (Hallenbeck v. Granby Ditch and Reservoir Company) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Colorado primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hallenbeck v. Granby Ditch and Reservoir Company, 420 P.2d 419, 160 Colo. 555 (Colo. 1966).

Opinion

Mr. Chief Justice Sutton

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a water reservoir storage case under C.R.S. ’53, 147-9-22 involving a change in points of storage on Dirty George Creek in Delta County. The matter was here previously and was then remanded to the trial court for re-trial “* * * with the view to determine whether injuries were posed to the junior right holders by the proposed change.” Hallenbeck v. Granby Ditch and Reservoir Company, 144 Colo. 485, 357 P.2d 358 (1960). We shall refer to C. V. Hallenbeck, the Plaintiff in Error, and sole present “objector” as such or by name, and, to the Defendant in Error, as Granby or the petitioner.

Reference should be made to the first Hallenbeck opinion for the prior history of this dispute, though on *560 retrial the case was heard on a different plan of development and some different facts. Suffice it to say here that at the re-trial it was shown that the map printed in 144 Colo, at p. 488, due to later discovered evidence, was not accurate in that Reservoir No. 10 actually is now located in the area of Reservoir No. 12, and, Reservoir No. 4 apparently has no decreed storage rights and is now part of Reservoir No. 5 and should be so considered. In addition, the chart listing the various decreed rights, which appears in 144 Colo, at p. 489, erroneously shows that Granby No. l’s 1937 adjudicated decree is 57.43 c.f. whereas it should read 76.02 cl.

For the purposes of this writ of error we must now detail the pertinent events relating to the re-trial.

Granby, in its 1955 petition for change, sought a “blanket decree” for its purported 12 reservoirs. It desired to store its adjudicated waters wherever it wished in its reservoirs and in no particular sequence. Junior holders, below the point of discharge of Granby’s waters, •objected, claiming injury.

In 1961 the trial court, pursuant to the directive of this court, set the new trial and directed the petitioner to submit a plan on how it intended to fill its reservoirs. Granby was specifically to show that the plan would not harm vested junior rights. It appears that in the meantime, since the action originally began, petitioner had gone ahead and raised or changed the dams in Reservoirs referred to in the record as 5-11. The latter consisting of the map areas shown in 144 Colo, at p. 488 as Reservoirs 4, 5, 8, 9, 10 and 11. In our references to this group of Reservoirs hereafter it must be understood that No. 10 (now being part of No. 12) is considered, in fact, to be non-existent in that area and that No. 4 has no standing. We are thus dealing with the question as to whether the trial court properly granted petitioner’s modified request to move the storage formerly decreed to Reservoirs 1, 2 and 3 to the new 5-11 area.

*561 By February 5, 1962, petitioner submitted its first plan to repair and enlarge 5-11 and to move only 1 and 2 storage there. It stated that no injury would accrue to any junior appropriators. Hallenbeck, however, did object and after a pre-trial conference the court directed petitioner to file another plan and gave leave to file an additional statement. The record fails to disclose that any additional plan was filed, however, in March 1962 Granby did file an amended petition followed by a re-amendment in May 1962. Evidently this was considered to be a plan for this time petitioner sought to move No. 2 and 3 storage to 5 -11; and, sought temporary storage in 5 -11 of No. 1, the storage of No. 1 to be made permanent later.

Finally, the matter went to trial in December 1962. As stated above, by that time the plan and issue were whether No’s. 1, 2 and 3 storage decrees could be moved to the enlarged 5-11 Reservoirs. At this time, for reasons that hereinafter appear, it should be noted that No. 9, which lies to the southeast of No. 5, is lower in elevation than 5-11 and is connected to 5-11 by a conduit.

Transposing the storage capacity in this action into figures we find that petitioner sought, and the trial court granted it, the right to relocate 313.62 a.f. of decreed water storage rights from No’s. 1, 2 and 3 to an enlarged reservoir covering the old No’s. 4 and 10 and the existing 5 and 11, the latter being connected with No’s. 8 and 9 by conduits or ditches. We note, in this connection that the decrees for No’s. 5, 8, 9 and 11 total 496.75 a.f. since No. 10 cannot be counted and No. 4 has no rights. This, plus 313.62 a.f. total for Reservoirs No’s. 1, 2 and 3 totals 810.37 a.f. This contrasts with the 843.40 a.f. which the court actually found in this action could be stored in 5-11 and 9 and which would result in an over-decree (assuming the trial court was correct in ordering the change) of 33.03 a.f. if the court had carried the error through into its judgment, which it *562 fortunately did not do. The trial court also required, by its decree, that certain ditches and outlets have proper measuring devices installed and that petitioner could have three years from the date of judgment to perform necessary work and repairs on Reservoirs No’s. 6 and 8 so that they could hold their decreed amounts.

Hallenbeck’s motion for a new trial was denied in September 1963 and he seeks relief by writ of error urging six grounds for reversal which we summarize as follows:

(1) That under the guise of changing the place of storage from one location to another a Reservoir Company cannot properly enlarge its reservoir capacity to store more water than it had been storing prior to the ■change and thus deplete the stream to the damage of a downstream junior appropriator;

(2) That the actual amount of former storage in certain Reservoirs (here 1, 2 and 3) is important in this •case and the burden of showing the amount thereof is ■on the petitioner;

(3) That as a matter of law the change sought here will injure the objector, irrespective of capacity and former usage, because the change is to a point alleged to be 1% miles downstream, at a lower elevation with a larger watershed. Specifically, Hallenbeck asserts that the time of delivery of his decreed water is interfered with by Granby’s new storage plan;

(4) That an abandonment occurred here as to certain of petitioner’s rights since it had voluntarily breached one of the dams some years earlier, another dam had washed out, with neither being repaired, and, that none of these three reservoirs (1, 2 and 3) had ever, in the past, stored their full decreed amounts;

(5) That the trial court erroneously decreed a new place of storage for No. 10’s waters for various reasons; and,

(6) That it was error to allow Granby three years in *563 which to repair its Reservoirs 6 and 8 so as to enable them to carry their decreed water.

Before commenting on Hallenbeck’s claims of error it is well to note carefully just what the trial court held in its lengthy Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Judgment. As pertinent here, in substance, it found:

(1) That the petitioner was not again seeking a “blanket decree”;

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Bluebook (online)
420 P.2d 419, 160 Colo. 555, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hallenbeck-v-granby-ditch-and-reservoir-company-colo-1966.